So What Are you Reading?: Generations

I've been in the mood for some more epic fantasy ever since I finished Game of Thrones in February, so I decided to start Eragon last night. My sister actually gave me this as a present a year or two ago, but I never got around to it until now.

Click to expand...

I managed to get through the first one - barely. Imagine a Star Wars knock off in a fantasy setting. Whatever impression that brings up, it's not as good as that...

In fairness, he was young when he wrote it

Click to expand...

He was a teen writing fanfic (nothing wrong with that) whose parents bought a publisher in order to publish it for him...

I tried reading Dune. It bored me to tears. I put it down and never tried again. That was nearly 30 years ago. I've thought about tryng it again but I never seem to have the time. I barely have time for Trek and my other reading. i guess I really don't have a desire to read it otherwise I would've made the time during those three decades.

Almost all of what I wanted to read about in Dune, learning the complexities of the worldbuilding, happened in a gap in the story that was skipped over. The appendices at the end had what I wanted, but I wanted to read about the characters learning that stuff. Pissed me off.

Hmm, I might go with something else then. The other three books I'm debating reading are Somewhere Inside but Laura and Lisa Ling, Sandstorm by James Rollings, or Heat Wave by "Richard Castle" (has anyone ever said anything about who's really writing the "Richard Castle" books?).

Judging from the thanks they give in the acknowledgments, it's almost certainly the show's creator/showrunner Andrew Marlowe and screenwriter/novelist Tom Straw. Which makes sense to me. I doubt they could coordinate the show and the books as well as they do without the direct participation of a showrunner, and only the showrunner could capture Nathan Fillion's voice as perfectly as the novels do with the "Jameson Rook" character.

It's Tom Straw - I saw an article/interview about that a couple of years ago, though I forget where and wouldn't have the link any more.

Click to expand...

But I'm certain Marlowe is participating too, at least contributing to the outline and doing revisions on Straw's work. As I said, the character voices are so perfectly captured that it most likely comes from the same hand that does the final draft of all the show's scripts. And the acknowledgments do thank Marlowe's family, something Straw alone would have no reason to do. I imagine something similar to how Shatner collaborates with his various co-authors -- they do the bulk of the day-to-day writing, but he shapes the plot, handles the main character's dialogue, and has the final revision and approval for everything.

I gather that the authors won't publicly acknowledge their authorship until after the TV series ends, so as to maintain the illusion.

Scalzi. Sigh. I know he's beloved of the geekarati, but he's just not to my taste. His snarky smart-ass protagonists don't appeal to me. It's like those profiles you see on Certain Websites where the dude thinks sneering and flipping you the bird is somehow attractive. No, just tiresome. Thus with Scalzi's characters. It's too bad, because the idea behind Redshirts is kind of cool. Frankly, I enjoy his blog a lot more than his novels.

Read Christopher Bennett's Star Trek: Typhon Pact e-novella The Struggle Within. That's a terribly generic title; the story was better. I was intending to start David R. George III's new Typhon Pact duology (Plagues of Night & Raise the Dawn) right after, but got sidetracked.

Thomas Burnett Swann wrote short lyrical fantasy stories and novels (most were really novellas, by current SFWA definition) about the interactions between humans and the prehumans who populated ancient Earth. Some remembrance of these interactions have come down to us in the form of myths and legends. Swann's stories are truly wonderful. And so very, very gay - in the best possible way. Swann is one of those lost & forgotten writers who certainly deserves to be remembered and read today. He died in 1976; the last time any of his work was in print in English was in 1996. Why doesn't the estate make it available in ebooks, at the very least? My old DAW and Ace and Ballantine paperbacks are getting pretty tattered.

The Niven/Lerner Fleet of Worlds series remind me a bit of those late-career novels by Asimov where he tried to stitch his three independent series into a single future history -- with mixed results. Niven seems to be attempting something similar here, adding context around stories such as "Neutron Star" and "The Soft Weapon". They're enjoyable listening while at the gym or driving back and forth to work, but when the Significant Other gets in the car with me I just shut off the sound system. It's too much work trying to explain how the current narrative fits together with Niven stories he read 3 or 4 decades ago.

Thanks! My preferred title was The Courage of Conscience, but apparently that wasn't exciting enough or something.

Click to expand...

And what I meant was "The story deserves a better title." It was a great story. That one, and your two DTI books have been excellent. Do you have any new Trek in the pipeline that's been announced yet?